When I was a boy, because of the song, I thought there really was an Easter parade, but the Easters came and went without one.
But here's a glimpse of just a little piece of a parade by Kim Dower, who lives in Los Angeles. Her forthcoming book is Last Train to the Missing Planet, Red Hen Press, 2016.
I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom,
breezy, floral, dancing with color soft, silky, flows as I walk Easter Sunday and you always liked
to get dressed, go for brunch, "maybe there's a good movie playing somewhere?" Wrong religion, we were not church-goers,
but New Yorkers who understood the value of a parade down 5th Avenue, bonnets in lavender, powder blues, pinks, hues
of spring, the hope it would bring. We had no religion but we did have noodle kugel, grandparents, dads
who could fix fans, reach the china on the top shelf, carve the turkey. That time has passed. You were the last
to go, mom, and I still feel bad I never got dressed up for you like you wanted me to. I had things, things to do. But today in L.A.—
hot the way you liked it—those little birds you loved to see flitting from tree to tree— just saw one, a twig in its mouth, preparing
a bed for its baby—might still be an egg, I wish you were here. I've got a closet filled with dresses I need to show you.
No boundaries are apparently the operative words to describe the anarchic comedy of satirist Sacha Baron Cohen.
He’s jumped from faux-streetwise hip-hop personality-turned-talk show host Ali G to Kazakhstani journalist Borat on his first visit to America and to fame-seeking Austrian fashion icon Bruno.
Along the way, Baron Cohen has skewered a lot of targets, often to devastating effect. “The Brothers Grimsby” allows him to invent a wholly original creation, one that may have been inspired by spending too much time in a working class British pub during World Cup.
The Grimsby of the film’s title is a decaying seaport town that may have seen better days long ago. Now, it’s just a cesspool of rundown row houses and industrial rot, and fittingly, at least in the film, it is identified as the “Twin City of Chernobyl.”
Interesting to know (and you can Google this), the town of Grimsby has been frequently voted the worst city in which to live in Britain, according to some online websites and publications dedicated to revealing the underbelly of urban hellholes.
Baron Cohen’s Nobby Butcher, a lowlife subsisting on welfare, is a football hooligan fanatically devoted to the English national team.
He fits the stereotype of the booze-guzzling party animal when it comes to celebrating soccer matches with his pals at the local tavern.
Living with his plus-size girlfriend Dawn (Rebel Wilson), Nobby is a devoted family man given that he’s got nine (or maybe 11) kids, most of them looking like refugees from a punk rock band or candidates for reform school.
Nevertheless, the family is tight-knit, and Nobby has kept his long-missing younger brother’s childhood bedroom the way he left it 28 years ago when the brothers were separated after the death of their parents.
The more innocent humor comes from Nobby awkwardly carrying home a mattress on a city bus and from the names of his children, including Skeletor, Django Unchained, Tsunami and Gangnam Style. Luke gets his name from having a cancerous disease.
“The Brothers Grimsby” is a family reunion story, of sorts. Nobby stumbles upon the fact that his brother has returned to England and will be attending a special charity event to which he has somehow managed to get an invitation.
What Nobby does not realize is that his brother Sebastian (Mark Strong, playing the straight man) is a deep undercover MI6 agent on assignment to disrupt a terrorist plot.
Unfortunately, Nobby’s excitement at seeing his brother compromises the mission and results in tragedy.
Forced to go on the run, and being chased by deadly assassins, Nobby and Sebastian must use their wits to survive.
Of course, the problem is that Nobby is basically an idiot, so the challenge is for Sebastian to keep his older, clueless brother out of harm’s way.
The film’s plot, such as it is, puts the brothers in the crosshairs of the British government, which mistakenly believes that Sebastian is now a rogue agent, and at odds with a criminal cartel bent on a plot to release deadly toxins that are designed to reduce the world’s population to a more manageable and sustainable level.
Meanwhile, how does Penelope Cruz’s Rhonda George, the apparent target of an assassination attempt by shadowy forces, figure into overall plot given her leadership of World Cure, an international health organization that may or may not be the front for something sinister?
“The Brothers Grimsby” doesn’t much care about the details of coherent action, even though there are terrific sequences of the two brothers in shootouts and chase scenes that suddenly thrust Nobby into the realm of James Bond fantasyland heroics.
Mostly, the action, whether it involves the gritty streets and back alleys of England or the African plains, is just an excuse for Sacha Baron Cohen to dream up the most egregious scenarios for gross-out humor and bizarrely vulgar jokes.
There are things happening in this film that can’t be described or explained in proper company. Let’s just say there are some outlandish setups involving bodily fluids and body parts, both the humankind and those engaged by elephants during mating season.
The humor in “The Brothers Grimsby” is often mind-numbingly stupid and grotesque, but a lot of it very funny and you could find yourself feeling guilty or maybe even a bit ashamed for laughing.
As the brothers, Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Strong have a great chemistry, with the latter, often irritably frustrated by his dimwitted sibling, nicely positioned as the comic foil. These brothers are indeed the yin and yang of comedy for “The Brothers Grimsby.”
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
Artists are invited to submit their original artwork to the 2016-2017 California Duck Stamp Art Contest.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) will accept submissions May 13 through June 13.
The contest is open to U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older as of March 14, 2016. Entrants need not reside in California.
The winning artwork will be reproduced on the 2016-2017 California Duck Stamp. The top submissions will also be showcased at the Pacific Flyway Decoy Association's art show in July.
The artwork must depict the species selected by the California Fish and Game Commission, which for the 2016-2017 hunting season is the lesser snow goose.
The design is to be in full color and in the medium (or combination of mediums) of the artist's choosing, except that no photographic process, digital art, metallic paints or fluorescent paints may be used in the finished design.
Photographs, computer-generated art, art produced from a computer printer or other computer/mechanical output device (air brush method excepted) are not eligible to be entered into the contest and will be disqualified.
The design must be the contestant's original hand-drawn creation. The entry design may not be copied or duplicated from previously published art, including photographs, or from images in any format published on the Internet.
All entries must be accompanied by a completed participation agreement and entry form. These forms and the official rules are available online at www.wildlife.ca.gov/duck-stamp/contest .
Entries will be judged at a public event to be held in June. The judges' panel, which will consist of experts in the fields of ornithology, conservation, and art and printing, will choose first, second and third-place winners, and an honorable mention.
Since 1971, CDFW's annual contest has attracted top wildlife artists from around the country. All proceeds generated from stamp sales go directly to waterfowl conservation projects throughout California.
In past years, hunters were required to purchase and affix the stamp to their hunting license. Now California has moved to an automated licensing system and hunters are no longer required to carry the physical stamps in the field (proof of purchase prints directly onto the license).
However, CDFW will still produce the stamps, which can be requested online at www.wildlife.ca.gov/licensing/collector-stamps .
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake Country Grand Jury is extending to next month the deadline for its art challenge for Lake County youth.
The grand jury is inviting young people ages 6 to 18 to submit their original artwork for inclusion in the 2015-16 grand jury report.
The grand jury publishes a written report every summer which is distributed to all departments in the county government and to the state archivist.
The artwork should express one or more of the following themes:
– The natural beauty of Lake County; – Unique Lake County culture; – Rebirth and renewal.
Winners will receive cash prizes: $200 for first place, $100 for second and $50 for places up to eighth.
To participate, submit a photo or a good copy of the original art that is packaged safely so it does not bend. Please do not submit original art work as they will not be able to return it.
Label the package “Grand jury artwork” and send it via the US Postal Service to Lake County Grand Jury, P.O. Box 1078, Kelseyville, 95451.
Digital files of the artwork – in JPG or PDF formats – also may be submitted to the grand jury at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Please indicate “Grand jury artwork” in the email header.
All entries – whether hard copy or digital – must include the artist’s name, age, address, email address and phone number.
The deadline for entering is April 30.
If your artwork is chosen, the grand jury will contact you for further information.
In my limited experience, mothering and worrying go hand in hand. Here's a mother's worry poem by Richard Jarrette, from his fine book, A Hundred Million Years of Nectar Dances. He lives in California.
My Mother Worries About My Hat
Every spring my mother says I should buy a straw hat so I won't overheat in summer.
I always agree but the valley's soon cold, and besides my old Borsalino is nearly rain-proof.
She's at it again, it's August, the grapes are sugaring. I say, Okay, and pluck a little spider from her hair—
hair so fine it can't hold even one of her grandmother's tortoise shell combs.
Only three years ago, “Olympus Has Fallen” set forth the preposterous plot of a North Korean terrorist attack on the White House during the course of which President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) was saved by then-demoted Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler).
The action heroics of Butler’s Agent Banning invited comparisons to Bruce Willis’ John McClane from the “Die Hard” franchise, considering that he operated pretty much like a one-man wrecking crew hell-bent on killing as many of the bad guys as possible.
In the present day, at the start of the nominal sequel “London Has Fallen,” Mike Banning, the trusted protector President Asher, now serving his second term, contemplates retirement from the service as his wife (Radha Mitchell) is expecting their first child.
The resignation letter sits in draft form on Banning’s computer and there it will remain because the sudden death of the British prime minister occasions the need for the president to attend a state funeral in London where the heads of state of many nations will congregate.
Working with Secret Service Director Lynne Jacobs (Angela Bassett), Banning realizes the high-stakes for the quick planning that must occur for the President and his protective detail to safely make the trip to St. Paul’s Cathedral in Britain’s capital city.
The backdrop to the story is the knowledge of a drone strike on a lavish wedding party in Lahore, Pakistan, where the target is the father of the bride, Aamir Barkawi (Alon Moni Aboutboul), a lethal arms dealer and one of the most wanted men in the world.
With every powerful world leader expected to attend, the funeral should be the most protected event on Earth. But the sadistic terrorist Barkawi and his equally villainous son Kamran (Waleed F. Zuaiter) have carefully plotted an infiltration of Britain’s security forces.
Within moments of arriving, heads of government are assassinated and virtually every recognizable London landmark, from Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament to iconic bridges, is destroyed by explosions. Even Buckingham Palace is under siege.
Back in Washington, D.C., Vice President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) takes command of the Situation Room, with the help of top advisors (Melissa Leo and Robert Forster, returning once again as the secretary of defense and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, respectively).
One of the president’s key advisors observes that Barkawi is number six of the top 10 most wanted. Barkawi appears most anxious to rise in the rankings when he tells the American government that his ambition is to capture President Asher for a televised execution.
Just as German terrorist Hans Gruber failed to account for the resolve of John McClane in “Die Hard,” the same could be said for Barkawi and his minions not figuring on the resiliency of Mike Banning to foil the most dastardly plot to assassinate the American commander in chief.
Coming under heavy fire from terrorists impersonating British police and intelligence officers, Banning and Asher have to make a thrilling escape on the nearly deserted streets in a high-speed car chase to reach the Marine One helicopter.
Meanwhile, Vice President Trumbull and the top advisors race against time brainstorming to get those trapped in London a lifeline of support and a way out, a process that appears increasingly complicated and compromised by an apparent mole in British intelligence.
Outnumbered and outgunned, Banning reaches out for help from trusted British MI6 agent Jacquelin Marshall (Charlotte Riley), who rightly trusts no one as she helps the Americans to get to a safe house.
Safety, however, is not the operative word in a city terrorized by legions of armed thugs machine-gunning everything in sight. Before long, Asher and Banning are on the run once again until the President is unfortunately captured by the terrorists.
The carnage that takes place with wide-scale destruction of people and places is certain to induce groans of disapproval in certain quarters. But “London Has Fallen” offers plenty of rousing action that serves well enough for mindless entertainment.
Though over-the-top and outlandish in its action sequences, “London Has Fallen” is a guilty pleasure film that can be enjoyed because it’s so outrageously staged. An added benefit is that the running time of 90 minutes keeps everything moving at a fast clip.
Gerard Butler has found his ticket to a franchise with his gritty portrayal of the wise-cracking Secret Service agent Mike Banning.
More action could be in store for him even when President Asher is termed out of office, and there’s a new occupant in the White House.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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